1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to substrate sheets and, in particular, this invention relates to materials and methods of binding substrate sheets.
2. Background of the Invention
There is often a need to assemble printed pages as bound documents. Documents of this nature include wills, deeds, financial reports, family histories, and albums. Currently, substrate sheets with pressure-sensitive adhesive are known to be used for this process. These substrate sheets are first printed with the desired indicia, then stacked in the desired order and aligned. Before the substrate sheets are bound together, release layers must be removed from over the adhesive layers without disturbing the alignment or order of the printed substrate sheets. This procedure has been difficult to perform satisfactorily and the result has often been assembled documents which have sheets out of alignment and/or order.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,481, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses paper sheets having recessed pressure-sensitive glued edges with removable strips. The paper sheets have a recess along one edge, a non-drying adhesive applied in the recess, and a removable protective strip covering the adhesive. The combined thickness of the adhesive and strip are substantially equal to the depth of the recess to provide a sheet of uniform thickness with a protected pressure-sensitive adhesive edge.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,153,041, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a pad assembly having a multiplicity of flexible sheets. Each sheet has a band of repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive coded on its rear surface, adjacent and spaced by a small predetermined spacing from a first edge. The sheets are disposed in the stack with the band of repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive on each sheet adhering it to the adjacent sheet in the stack. A layer of padding compound is disposed over, and adhered to, aligned first edges of the sheets in the stack. After the band of repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive on the rear surface of one of the sheets in the stack is separated from the front surface of the adjacent sheet in the stack, the padding compound allows one sheet (and any sheets above it) to be pivoted away from that adjacent sheet while remaining adhered to the adjacent sheets. The small predetermined spacing between the band of repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive and the first edge of each sheet provides a tactile feel when the band of repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive on the rear surface of one of the sheets in the stack separates from the front surface of the adjacent sheet in the stack. The tactile feel signals the person peeling the sheet away that such separation has occurred, and allows that person to reduce the force being applied to the sheet, thereby restricting inadvertent separation of that sheet from the padding compound. After the sheet is intentionally separated from the padding compound, the band of repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive on the sheet affords adhesion of that sheet to a vertical surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,013,149, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a pad including coadhesively adhered sheets. The pad includes a plurality of flexible sheets in a stack and padding means for releasably adhering parts of the major surfaces of adjacent sheets in the stack together to maintain the sheets in the stack. The padding means is provided in that at least some of the sheets having patterns of coadhesively coated on their major surfaces, which patterns of coadhesive are adhered to patterns of coadhesive on adjacent sheets in the stack and releasably adhere parts of the major surfaces of adjacent sheets in the stack together in a surface-to-surface relationship until the patterns of cohesive are peeled apart.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,027,600, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a dual simplex printer media and method. The method for printing includes the steps of feeding a multi-layer compound sheet into a dual-simplex printer, printing on each side of the multi-layer compound sheet, and separating the layers of the multi-layer compound sheet to produce at least two sheets having printed material on one side. The multi-layer sheets include a first layer and a second layer bonded to the first layer with pressure-sensitive adhesive.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,026, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet and laminate of pressure-sensitive adhesive sheets. The pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet includes a substrate sheet, a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer formed on one side of the substrate sheet, and a release layer. The release layer includes a cured product from a ionizing radiation-curing type releasable resin formed on the other side of the substrate sheet. A laminate includes a plurality of these pressure-sensitive adhesive sheets imposed on one another so that the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer and the release layer directly face each other and whole surfaces of the pressure-sensitive adhesive layers are covered with the release layer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,153,278, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a pad of adhesively secured sheets constructed so that individual sheets may be removed from a pad without the individual sheets having aggressively tacky or repositionable tacky coatings on exposed surfaces of the sheets after removal.
However, none of the presently available embodiments provides a substrate sheet with a pressure-sensitive adhesive protected by a release liner, which effectively protects the adhesive and which can be easily and quickly removed when binding documents made from the substrate sheets. There is then a need for a printable substrate sheet with a pressure-sensitive adhesive protected by a release liner, which can be efficiently and quickly removed.